Eirōneia as a Key Tactic of Socrates’s True Rhetoric in Plato: The Case of the “Royal Speech” ( First Alcibiades , 121a–124b)
Natalia KramarABSTRACT
This article seeks to reexamine Socratic εἰρωνεία, as it appears in Plato’s dialogues, as a peculiar form of discourse, indissociable from Socrates’s philosophical mission (Apology of Socrates 38a). How does this eirōneia—that commentators define as a form of pretense, feigning, or “simulation method”—work to turn his fellow citizens away from ignorance, to reflection, self-knowledge, and philosophy? Suggesting that Socrates’s eirōneia could be apprehended as a sort of “useful lie” (Republic 2, 382c–d), the author analyzes its usage in the “royal speech,” attempting to reconsider this notion as a crucial persuasion tactic of Socrates’s “true rhetoric” (Gorgias 517a5), addressing Alcibiades’s reason and emotions to reach philosophical goals.